The Unexpected Benefits of an 8am
by AquilaMage
Summary: In which Klavier is given finally given the opportunity to talk with the cute guy in his class. (Companion to "Stranded")


Klavier stumbles into the lecture hall just as class is beginning. As he takes a seat in the back row, instead of paying attention to the beginnings of the professor's lecture, he focuses on scanning the rows of students in front of him. With some shifting around, he catches sight of what he was looking for, only then beginning to relax from his mad dash out of his dorm.

As usual, he's seated a few rows from the front and all the way to the side of the aisle, typing away at his laptop.

It had started the first day of classes. Initially it had been boredom, his gaze wandering the room in a half-awake daze as the professor read through the syllabus and happening to settle on the other student a few rows in front of him. But as time had went on, Klavier'd found himself fascinated by the little expressions of concentration he made as he worked, illuminated by his screen like a tiny spotlight. When he caught himself angling in his seat to catch a glimpse of those brown curls during the second class, he knew he was gone.

Even now, Klavier finds himself sighing as he watches the way his one hand moves through the air, the pencil in it absently counting out a series of patterns even as his face seems to stay fixed on the lesson. It's silly, he knows, to let himself be so utterly distracted by someone whose name he doesn't even know that he's barely paid attention in class, but he also knows himself well enough to realize that there's no helping that now. And if he can't get rid of the crush, he needs to find a way to actually talk to the object of it, or he's going to end up having to repeat a 100-level course he's taking as a gen ed, of all things.

Since he's already distracted, he decides to go over the plan he'd come up for actually talking to the guy. As soon as he'd finished his work for the evening, Klavier had sat until late into the night going through possible approaches. The final idea had seemed like a good one at the time, but then so had setting his alarm half an hour earlier so he could get to class before it started and talk to the other student then, and _that_ had ended up with him switching it to pm and rolling out of bed at seven-forty instead.

When the professor drops her notes to the podium with a dull thud, there's a few seconds before Klavier abandons his things to make his way over to the other student. However, that slight delay forces him to push against the current of departing students, and by the time he reaches the spot where he'd been sitting, it has been long vacant.

He lets out a huff of frustration. Well, there went _that_ chance. Sitting on the edge of the table, he considers his options. He could wait until Monday rolled around to see if his chances of intercepting the other student would go better, but based on how this week had turned out, it didn't feel like it would work out any better. Thing was, he also couldn't see any other viable options. All Klavier knew was enough to give a vague physical description and that he was in class that a hundred other people were also in: not exactly the kind of information that would be helpful in asking around or checking social media or anything, really. If only he had something else to go by…

Deciding that sitting around isn't doing him any favors, Klavier hops off the desk, only to be met with the crunching of paper under his feet. Scattered under the table are a half-dozen loose leaf sheets of paper covered in messy writing that upon closer inspection he recognizes as musical notation. His heart skips a beat. Of course, even as he frantically scans the pages, he finds no lyrics, no notes in the margin, and certainly no name or even anything of the sort that would even confirm that these even belong to his mystery man.

But that doesn't stop him from gathering them up and taking them with him back to his things, clutched to his chest. Sliding them into a folder, he gathers everything else up and heads out the door.

He spends the rest of the morning with it constantly in the back of his mind. He finds himself scanning crowds everywhere he goes, walking the length of one of the dining halls several times after he's finished lunch, and even lurking in the student center during his longest break between classes to see if he can catch a glimpse of the other student.

It's during one of the lulls in the day that he finds himself pulling out the music again, this time studying the actual content of the writing. Even though he can sightread pretty well, he only goes through about a page in his head before he puts it away. Maybe he's just projecting his own feelings, but something about it feels too personal, like reading someone's diary.

He still manages to feel like he's going nowhere as he makes his way through the music building at the end of his afternoon class; thankfully the last of the day, although he's still not done with responsibilities for the evening. It's almost overwhelming at this point, causing him to slow down to try and process everything; he finds himself zoning out and having to retrace his steps to get to the stairs, nearly colliding with another student as he passes him, losing count as he tries to figure how many days he has to-

Wait.

Klavier freezes in his tracks, then turns the other way. It might have just been a trick of his mind, but…

A determined expression set on his face, Klavier makes his way back towards the hall of practice rooms he'd passed. He's just had enough time to realize that he doesn't have a real plan - what, is he going to just look in the windows and hope he doesn't look like a creep, he doesn't even know what to say anymore - when he catches sight of an open door in front of him.

As things would have it, there is exactly the person he was looking for, seated at the bench in front of the piano, although facing the other way, and shuffling through a pile of papers in his lap.

He wants to give himself a moment to prepare, to make sure he'll say the right thing to make sure it goes as well as his heart desperately needed it to, but the overeager excitement in him overrides that and he finds himself opening his mouth. "Excuse me?"

He jumps just a little, but recovers quickly, looking up at him. "Oh. I'll be out in a second."

"No, it's fine. I was just…" His hand goes to brush his bangs out of his face as he stumbles to find an excuse. Klavier is suddenly very conscious of everything he's doing, from his posture leaned on the outside of the doorway, to the fact that he's seriously regretting his alarm mistake all over again because he can tell the bun he'd shoved his hair in this morning is half undone. Failing to continue that train of thought, he leaps at the first next one that comes to mind. "Are you looking for something?"

"Yeah, I just…I think I left something here before." Placing the stack on the seat next to him, he goes to the corner where someone has left another pile of stray papers. "I thought I had it after I left here yesterday, but I can't think of any other time I would have taken them out since then."

"Music? Is this for a class, or…?"

He pauses, head not quite tilting up all the way, so that his bangs are just obscuring his eyes. "Yes. And no. And…" He chews on his lip. "I'm in the music program, but this isn't for a class."

Klavier's brain has temporarily turned to static screaming about how unfairly adorable the look of frustration is on his face that he doesn't respond for a good minute. It's only when he finally registers that he's gone back to searching that he realizes his mistake. Sliding his backpack around so he can reach inside, he retrieves the folder he'd carefully tucked the papers into.

"Something like this?" he says after dropping the bag and taking a single step inside.

At the sound, he perks up, and when he catches sight of the writing, his expression lights up in a way that makes Klavier worried for his balance. "My music!" He takes them back with an air of eagerness, although handling them with care. "Thanks, uh…"

"Klavier."

"Klavier. Thanks." He hugs the music to his chest, pauses. "Oh!" He holds out a hand. "It's…Sebastian."

He's quite sure he's just a little lightheaded as he takes the hand, even more so as he lets go, but Sebastian's smile, oh, now that's worth anything.

"Where did you find these, though?" A tiny frown. "I was sure I was in this room before…"

"Ach," He scolds himself to remember not to sound creepy or desperate. "Actually we're in the same morning class, and I happened to notice you had dropped something." He laughs. "It's quite fortunate we happened to run into each other here; I didn't know where I could even start looking. I mean, I've been involved with most areas of the music program since I started in the fall, and I'd never seen you before, even in passing in those classes, so…"

Sebastian pauses where he's seated back on the bench, leaned over his open bag. "No, that…" His voice gets quiet. "That makes sense." More at normal volume, "I actually just started this semester, so I'm one behind in all the introductory classes and everything."

That does explain a lot, actually. A bit more at ease, Klavier leans against the doorway again, one hand tucked in the loop of his jeans and the other absently spinning a ring as he searches for a reasonable way to continue this discussion. He pauses for a second when the obvious thought comes to him, resuming with a smile blooming across his face.

xxxxxxxx

Sebastian isn't quite sure how he ended up spending nearly half an hour, he estimates, making his way through a gradually more impassioned explanation of his feelings about the way the music theory class is set up. Normally, he would barely get a few sentences in before whoever was around would become clearly bored or at least completely lost in his explanations. Even when Kay let him keep talking for whatever period of time he wanted, there was still that sense of guilt because he clearly knew she didn't understand and was only doing it because she knew he liked having someone to talk to about it.

But here, when he'd trailed off at the usual time he always did, mumbling an apology about rambling, Klavier had simply tilted his head a little and told him to keep going. Plus the fact that he was clearly actually listening and contributed the occasional point of his own or an encouraging question. Not to get him wrong, it was really nice, but if Klavier kept looking at him like that, absolutely radiating genuine interest and returning it with equally emphatic points… it really wasn't fair, especially coming from someone that pretty.

Of course, as he actually thinks about that, Klavier's phone begins to ring, and he excuses himself to stand fully in the corridor to take the call.

The moment Klavier's out of view, Sebastian drops his head in his hands, taking a few steadying breaths. Why couldn't it have been someone a little less pretty, or interesting, or apparently considerate enough of a stranger to bother going after him just to return something he'd dropped? Yeah, in that scenario he'd probably never have gotten his music back, but then he also wouldn't be the blushing mess he was pretty sure he was being right now.

This was not a situation he was used to, and certainly not one he was sure he could get through without messing it up without help. Checking quickly to make sure the other was still occupied, he pulled out his phone. Before he could do anything else, he saw the notification that he'd already gotten a few texts a bit ago.

_2:40PM_

**Kay:** hey seb i need a favor

dont freak out or anything buuut

i might, possibly, hypothetically, mayyyybe

have gotten stuck on the roof of the tech building

just a little

and there's a freaking. tour open house thing so I cant just climb back down

i know youre looking for your music though so you dont have to rush. ill manage

there might also be a rly cute lady here with me sooo

.

He looks up from the messages to stare at the wall in an attempt to quiet the new wave of emotions this is giving him. A little frantically, he starts typing back. It'd be a minute before he could go rescue Kay from whatever nonsense she's gotten herself into this time, but at least if she's not doing anything at the moment she could maybe help him with figuring out how to handle his situation.

"Sorry about that."

Klavier appears back in the doorway and Sebastian yelps, frantically sending what he'd managed to type of the last message and practically tossing his phone into his bag.

He blinks in confusion at the act for a second, but doesn't say anything about it, fortunately. Instead, he smiles and offers another apology for the interruption.

"It's fine. I was going on for a while, anyway."

Klavier frowns, and it's not fair how even that manages to be sweet and cute as any other expression he's made, even as he looks like he'd just rolled out of bed and dressed in the dark (Sebastian's pretty sure his shirt is on backwards, but he doesn't want to embarrass him, especially if he's wrong). "I don't mind, really. My class was fine, but we rarely had discussions quite this interesting." He leans forward, a warm smile on his face.

He really, really wants to shake his head, to argue that there's nothing interesting or intelligent about what he's said, but this time he manages to catch himself. Right. Accepting compliments. That was a thing he was supposed to be working on. "Thanks." The tone still comes out with a bit of a question at the end, but it's close enough for him to be okay with it.

Klavier's smile gets a little bigger, and Sebastian gets a lot of butterflies in his stomach from the realization that _he_ did that, that this reaction is entirely meant for him, and oh wow he hopes those compliments were meant as non-platonically as he'd interpreted them to be.

The look fades back to normal, and he runs his hand though his hair. "Ach, unfortunately as much as I would like to talk more, I appear to have lost track of time and I actually have a planning meeting in a few minutes." He looks a little embarrassed as he stares up at the ceiling.

"Planning?" He's turned his attention mostly to his bag, shuffling around to make sure he actually has everything before he leaves this time.

"My- our…band. At the time, having a concert in the first month of the semester had seemed like a good idea, but now, well…" He shrugs.

Sebastian freezes up. "Oh."

"What?" There's a look of concern on his face, equal parts defensive and worried.

"No, I just-" He pulls his backpack up to his lap and hugs it in front of him like a shield. "I must look silly to you, in comparison."

"Nonsense!" Klavier has both hands clutched in front of him, his expression the most serious he's seen it as he stares Sebastian down.  
Just because I happen to be working with other people doesn't make me any better of a musician or composer."

"You don't have to be polite about it."

"No, really." He plays with a few of the loose hairs that have fallen over his shoulder. "I'd like to hear it sometime, if you're alright with that. Seems like it'd sound almost as pretty as you are."

The last sentence was said quietly enough that Sebastian is almost certain he'd imagined it, but then he notices the slight nervous shift of his posture, and the realization has him reeling.

He's saved from having to respond when Klavier's phone goes off again. Looking at it, he sighs before answering. What's being said from the other side is audible, but not quite comprehensible. "Ja, Daryan I am _on_ my way." He shrugs at Sebastian, an apologetic expression as he gestures with his free hand to the phone. "Five... five minutes." Then he mouths "sorry" to him.

Sebastian mouths an "it's okay" back before waving him off.

Klavier gives one last smile before turning to leave, still talking on the line.

xxxxxxxx

It's not until he's halfway through a discussion about setting up the space that Klavier realizes he never figured out any means of communicating with Sebastian again and has to restrain himself from screaming.

xxxxxxxx

Sebastian sighs lightly, sinking his head down onto his bag. He's pretty sure his expression right now is weirdly dazed but happy, and he's not really sure he cares in the moment. Heady with the after-feelings of the conversation and not feeling any urgency to do anything, he lets himself sit there for a moment before getting up to leave.

It's only as he's making his way out of the music building that doubts start to creep in. Yeah, sure, he'd _thought_ it was flirting in the moment, but for the most part it hadn't exactly been overt, right? And besides, his brain added, really starting to get on a roll, if he actually meant anything by it, wouldn't Klavier have made some kind of plans to meet up or connect so they could talk again or _something_?

He cuts himself off. Spiraling isn't going to help; he needs to get an outside opinion before he really decides it's hopeless. Kay should-

_Kay_!

He sticks a hand in his pocket, momentarily panicking before he remembers when he'd tossed it in his bag earlier and digs through it to retrieve his phone.

She still hasn't responded, and the read notification doesn't even show up until after he sends his second message. It takes another couple of increasingly frantic texts before she finally replies.

_4:19PM_

**Kay:** im FINE dude. gimme a couple minutes to get out of here

and then i can help you flirt ;P

or fight him if hes being weird either works

.

Sebastian shakes his head fondly before closing out of the messages.

He's about halfway to their dorm building when he's met with a shout, and Kay is barreling across several grass spaces and around bunches of students to get to his side.

"Hey!" She falls into step with him, beaming as she faces him.

"Hi. Why do you have your sweater around your neck?"

A hand goes up, as if she's forgotten about it. "Long story," she finally says. "Which reminds me." Kay opens her phone, types out a quick message, and sticks it away again before tapping his shoulder. "_So_, how did it go? Do I have to give this guy the shovel talk or threaten him for real?" She looks far too happy about either of those options.

Sebastian sticks his hands under his arms. "I…don't know. Well, not the second! But I'm not sure about the first." He recounts the incident as they make their way up to Kay's dorm room, his nervousness growing as her expression remains contemplative, but relatively neutral.

Throwing herself on her bed, she gestures for him to sit next to her, wrapping her arms around him as he does so. When he finishes explaining, she laughs softly. "Dude. He's _definitely_ into you."

"But he didn't say anything about wanting to talk to me again!" He curls into himself.

"Yeah," she says gently, running her hands through his hair as she speaks, "but he left in a hurry, right? Wasn't planning on ending things that way?" Kay turns so he can see her face, then gives him a stern look. "Trust me, you don't talk to someone like that unless there's at least some interest."

Her text notification chimes, and there's a moment where her gaze flickers between where she's set it and back to him.

Sebastian grins. "Did you give this girl her own sound _already_? _Someone_'s lost it."

She huffs and messes with his hair, reaching over for her phone.

As she taps at the screen, he burrows into her shoulder, breathing more calmly as the quiet stretches on. There's a comfort in the familiar sensation, and even as Kay turns back to him, beaming, and insists on working through a plan for him before he lets her ramble about her day, he finds himself much less stressed about the entire situation.

xxxxxxxx

He's a little _more _so when Monday rolls around and he's stepping back into his morning class just a little earlier than usual. Fortunately, he doesn't have to spend longer worrying, as he spots Klavier seated along the far side of the classroom.

It takes him a second, but as soon as Klavier spots him, he practically jumps out of his seat. As soon as he gets close enough, he breaks into conversation. "I apologize for leaving like that the other day. Especially since, ah…I didn't have the time to even ask if you had any interest in talking again."

Oh now Sebastian _had_ to have heard that wrong. _Klavier_ was doubting if _he_ was interested? Even seeing the way he was avoiding looking at him as he spoke, fidgeting nervously, wasn't enough to fully convince him. "It's fine! I wasn't entirely sure if you were and…"

Klavier breaks out into laughter. "I _certainly_ am." His heart practically melts as he sees the relief bloom across Sebastian's face. He's _so_ cute, how could anyone ever think about making him doubt himself in ways that would even necessitate that reaction? Catching himself, he's about to add onto that when the professor begins to speak and they have to sit down.

Sebastian sets himself next to him, but quickly murmurs about needing to concentrate so he can actually get anything done. Klavier's more than fine with that, though. In fact, he finds it easier to concentrate than any time before in this class, only occasionally finding his gaze wandering. It's probably because he's mostly confident that he can talk with him now, instead of having to be satisfied with whatever glances he can steal from across a crowded room.

Once class is over, they both turn to the other and begin talking at the same time.

Klavier leans back in his chair. "You go first."

"Um. You said you still wanted to talk so. I…kind of have to go. Class, like, all the way across campus but, uh…" He frowns, then reaches into his folder for the first sheet of paper with blank space on it, tearing it off before writing on it. "Call me after you get out of classes for the day?" He flushes, and adds, frantically. "Only if you want to!"

Klavier is already going to the number in his contacts. "Of course. But give me some time after? I want to look presentable for once." He indicates the slightly less messy, but still definitely disheveled look he has going on. "I promise I'm not usually like this. Just… not really a morning person."

"It's fine. I mean, I'm not that picky a date." Clasping his hands over his mouth, he shrinks into himself with a look of horror. "Not that it's a date or anything!"

"…What if I would like it to be?" Klavier studies him, hoping desperately that the original comment was heartfelt and not simply an accidental use of the term.

There's a moment of silence, of Sebastian wringing his hands before looking up with a determined expression. "Then it is."

Klavier can't help the expression of utter delight that springs to his face, but he doesn't mind, especially when he gets a hesitant, but still definitely there smile in return.

As much as he wants to stay here, Sebastian forces himself to stand up. "I really do have to leave, though. Talk about it later?" He gives his best pleading expression, although he suspects it won't take much if any effort to sway Klavier on this topic.

Indeed, he immediately gives a vigorous nod, making a heart with his hands. When Sebastian shyly mirrors it right before disappearing out of sight through the doorway, it's all Klavier can do not to collapse right then and there onto the lecture room floor, overcome with the knowledge that it'll only be a few hours until he can see him again.


End file.
